John Calvin Commentary Psalms 40:13

"Be pleased, O Jehovah, to deliver me: Make haste to help me, O Jehovah." — Psalms 40:13 (ASV)

Be thou pleased, O Jehovah, to deliver me. The verb David uses here signifies desiring something from pure kindness and goodwill. Therefore, he desires to be delivered by God's free mercy. Regarding his desire that God would make haste, we have spoken of this elsewhere.

Even when God delays to help us, it is our duty to contend against a feeling of weariness. But such is his goodness that he permits us to use this form of prayer: that he would make haste according to our desires. Then, according to his usual practice, citing his enemies to the judgment seat of God, he feels confident that, on account of their cruelty and unjust and wicked hatred, he will obtain what he asks.

We must maintain it as a fixed principle that the more unjustly our enemies afflict us, and the more cruelly they wrong us, God is all the more disposed to help us. And it is no slight consolation that God's mercy strives against their wickedness, so that the more fiercely our enemies pursue us to harm us, the more ready he is to bring us help.

We have already frequently spoken of the feelings with which David uttered these imprecations, and it is necessary here again to refresh our memory on this subject, lest anyone, when giving free rein to their passions, should allege David's example as an excuse or in palliation. This wicked and counterfeit imitation by those who follow the powerful impulse of the flesh, instead of being guided by the zeal of the Spirit, is always to be condemned.

When the Psalmist prays (verse 15) that his enemies may be destroyed for a reward of their shame, the meaning is this: Since their sole desire has been to overwhelm me with shame, so that, while I was so dismayed and confounded, they might make me an object of their derision, so let a similar confusion fall upon their own heads.

In the second clause of the verse, he describes the nature of this confusion by recounting their wicked triumphing, through which they poured contempt on him while he was so oppressed with misery and affliction.

We are taught here that when our enemies have persecuted us to the uttermost, a recompense is also prepared for them. We are also taught that God will turn back all the evil they had devised against us, making it fall upon their own heads. This doctrine ought to act as a restraint upon us, so that we behave compassionately and kindly towards our neighbors.